


Dancing in the dark

by RosadelValle



Series: Heart of darkness [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlife, Bittersweet Ending, Daddy Issues, Hux is Nice, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Suicide, Mitaka is in hiding, Mommy Issues, Murder, One-Sided Attraction, Post-TRoS, Unrequited Love, Very brief mention of infertility, and depressed, basically the nuremebrg trials, big time, but briefly - Freeform, but in space and on steroids, hux gives a speech, mention of inbreeding, mention of violence, mitaka is depressed, mitaka is losing his mind, or better in exile, there is a portrait in this story, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosadelValle/pseuds/RosadelValle
Summary: Mitaka discovers how strong the pull of love can be, even after decades of exile.Even after you only fed your love with a memory and a portrait.‘Do you get drunk looking at that portrait, Lieutenant? It’s a nice portrait, the General wasn’t so handsome in his holopics. Not that it matters, obviously. Love is deeper than skin, i guess… We had a file on you. I read it, Mitaka. You’re not a bad man, you didn’t kill anyone, personally or otherwise. What people like you see in people like Hux, i’ll never understand’.The General was born in a haunted forest.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Dopheld Mitaka
Series: Heart of darkness [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1357984
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11





	1. Damnatio memoriae

A woman and a man dressed in white, walking hand in hand through the meadow. He didn't pay much attention to them at first: the planet had slowly become one of the favourite holiday spots for middle aged people thanks to its gentle climate and luscious green landscapes, and hikers were a common sight. But when the woman laughed out loud, he froze. His stomach clenched violently. 

It was her. 

Mirina.

  
  


_ Three decades before, a few months after the end of the war _

  
  


The few remaining high-ranking officers of the First Order had been brought to trial by the victorious New Republic and all of them had been sentenced to death. It was a big show with a lot of drama, tragedy and a couple of suicides. One of the officers that managed to hang himself had been a personal friend of Mitaka, and he felt happy for him. 

Dopheld had made it a point of honor to watch every single broadcast of the trials, standing at attention during the reading of the sentences and the executions.

They broadcasted that too, a nice touch of Grand Guignol that he was able to appreciate, after all. 

With no friends or superiors left alive and the First Order officially disbanded, alone and in hiding on a remote rural planet, Mitaka had resigned himself to just live for a while and then die. Only that. No purpose, no pain, no fight. Only a small house, a forest and too many memories. His sister was probably alive somewhere but he didn’t have enough energy or interest to go looking for her. He was depressed, tired and ready to live in relative peace whatever number of years he still had ahead of him. 

Mirina Lorkas came and destroyed his precarious balance, filled him with rage and gave him a new purpose. She was blonde, statuesque and her regular features irradiated resolution and determination. Mirina was the youngest judge of the trials and, thanks to her youthful appearance and vivacious oratorical skills, she quickly became very popular and admired. Little girls wanted to be like her, young women tried to imitate her style and men lusted after her virginal look. Judge Lorkas had them all wrapped around her little finger and used her influence to make a spectacular move: put General Hux on a post-mortem trial. She insisted on the symbolic value of the event: not even death could save criminals from the justice of the Republic.

Mitaka watched the broadcast in a state of shock: whatever it was that Mirina Lorkas had thought, the Hux Trial had been nothing but a grotesque charade. In the eyes of Dopheld, at least. The sentence caught him by surprise though. With her golden locks draped around her shoulders, wrapped in her judge’s robe, Mirina condemned the First Order General Armitage Hux to oblivion, _ damnatio memoriae.  _ Every record of Hux was going to be erased from the holonet and those caught in possession of First Order material depicting Hux would be punished according to the law. The Republic would conserve a single holocron of the destruction of the Hosnian System to the undying memory of the tragedy. 


	2. Mother.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The General put a hand on his shoulder and let it rest there for a long time. When he walked away, Mitaka wasn’t thinking about his family anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a small historical easter egg in the chapter.  
> Only the real history nerds will find it.

Despite her wealthy background, Mitaka’s mother had always been curiously anti-militaristic. Her name was Aradia and she was a tiny, plump woman who prided herself on the intellectual salons she hosted monthly. She had a whispering voice and a beautiful mouth that often smiled sweetly, but her gentle looks were extremely deceiving: Aradia was sarcastic and cynical, with a sardonic and gloomy sense of humor. She couldn’t understand why her son would waste his life following someone else’s orders, living miserably on a stupid ship that spun like a giant top in the frozen blackness of space. She hated uniforms in general and thought that Dopheld looked like a giant toy soldier. Loyalty, discipline, order, glory… These words held no meaning to Aradia.

The only time she made some efforts to be a sympathetic mother, she delivered the final blow to their already wobbly relationship. The occasion was one of those events that the First Order held to gain more support from the civilians who had money and connections, an elegant ‘dinner on the grass’ preceded by some debates and a speech of General Hux. He had been wonderful, as usual. Mitaka found him to be one of the best orators in the army, the perfect combination of fire and control. His rank would have allowed him to listen from the stage but he preferred to merge with the public: he wanted to look at Hux. So he just sat down near his mother and listened attentively to every word of his General, mesmerized by the intensity of his gaze. The end of the speech was greeted by a roar of cheering. But when Mitaka turned to Aradia expecting to be congratulated for serving under such an intelligent man, she didn’t smile at all. She hadn’t even noticed him. She was just staring intensely at the General with a frozen, expressionless face.  When she finally turned back at him, she just told him very flatly: _ ‘Your General Hux is out of his fucking mind. You’ve all lost your mind’.  _

And that was the last time they ever talked.   
  
  
  


Which is why he didn’t especially care when, four years later, she died. A stroke, apparently sudden and painless. Mitaka didn’t even take a personal leave. He mourned the mother he never had, not the one he actually met, and for that he didn’t need to take a permit.

_ ‘Lieutenant Mitaka. A man is not the sum of his parents, whatever some people may say. Be present to yourself and nothing bad will happen to you’. _

The General put a hand on his shoulder and let it rest there for a long time. When he walked away, Mitaka wasn’t thinking about his family anymore.


	3. Me and You.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone, almost certainly an educated officer, had painted him using that old-fashioned technique, probably sending the portrait back home to someone who either lost it or sold it after the war.

It was rare for Mitaka to just approach a stand for fun: since he was still technically on the run, he just hastily visited the lesser known markets to buy the essentials and then hurried back home. But he couldn’t help it. The vendor was the most beautiful alien he had ever seen and she could have passed for a human, except for her skin: dark green, a shade so vibrant it almost looked velvety, with golden moles around her mouth and on her arms. Charming creature but, sadly, very slow. She could barely explain what she was selling and count the money, the good-natured taunts of the other vendors were clearly wasted on her.

They explained to Mitaka that almost everyone on her planet was like that: the place was very isolated and the inhabitants rarely married outside their tribe, a problem that was starting to affect the new generations. Her people even ignored that a war had been fought around them. 

That explained why she didn’t destroy the portrait. Mitaka felt all his blood rush to his heart when he saw it, almost hidden behind some wooden tools. General Hux was looking at him from the canvas. Someone, almost certainly an educated officer, had painted him using that old-fashioned technique, probably sending the portrait back home to someone who either lost it or sold it after the war. Hux was shown three-quarters against a background of snow and pines (ah!), looking ahead of him and holding his gloves in his right hand. It was a romantic, heroic portrait made by someone with skills and talent. It was also, likely, the last surviving image of General Hux of the First Order.

Mitaka hung it in the main room of his little house, a space that served both as a kitchen and a living room. He hung it between the window and the fireplace, in a spot where he could always see it. The distinctive red mop of the General was the only spot of color in an otherwise very rural, very brown place. Mitaka loved to sit in front of it, especially when it was cold outside and the sky was dark, because with a glass of brandy and an effort of imagination he could feel like he was on the bridge of the Finalizer again. And in the wintery nights, when it snowed, he slept in front of the fireplace and dreamed of red columns of fire and white hands. Not to mention that this was a version of the General he could talk to with an open heart, he could even discuss the various dinner options. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be nice and leave me a comment.  
> But only a nice one (i don't accept constructive criticism)


	4. See you soon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Do you get drunk looking at that portrait, Lieutenant? It’s a nice portrait, the General wasn’t so handsome in his holopics. Not that it matters, obviously. Love is deeper than skin, i guess… We had a file on you. I read it, Mitaka. You’re not a bad man, you didn’t kill anyone, personally or otherwise. What people like you see in people like Hux, i’ll never understand’.

_ ‘I’ve met your mother, Lieutenant Mitaka. At one of her soirees, as you can imagine. I was very young back then but smart enough to understand that, under her intellectual patina, there wasn’t really much. But she was right about you, about the First Order. Hux was out of his fucking mind and so are you’. _

Mirina’s husband lies dead in the meadow while she sits in Mitakas living room, tied to a chair. She hasn’t aged as gracefully as Dopheld, she is so thin one could almost mistake her for the mummy of the beautiful girl she used to be. He read somewhere on the holonet that she couldn’t have children, maybe it had something to do with that. Her career as a judge didn’t take off either: she tried to ride the wave of the Hux Trial but, as it turned out, people prefer to forget certain things. Mitaka tries to imagine how the General would have aged but he can’t. 

_ ‘Do you get drunk looking at that portrait, Lieutenant? It’s a nice portrait, the General wasn’t so handsome in his holopics. Not that it matters, obviously. Love is deeper than skin, i guess… We had a file on you. I read it, Mitaka. You’re not a bad man, you didn’t kill anyone, personally or otherwise. What people like you see in people like Hux, i’ll never understand’. _

Mitaka knows she can’t. The judge inside her is genuinely curious but there’s nothing he can say that could satisfy her curiosity. He can’t possibly explain the General to the woman who ordered to destroy his memory forever. How can you explain to someone like Mirina that love is just standing side by side, fighting for something greater than you, something above you. Working for Hux and growing old together on the bridge of the Finalizer would have been enough for Mitaka, he didn’t need to have his hand held in a meadow. He just wanted to exist in his General’s proximity. 

Dopheld sighs, points his old blaster to Mirina’s head and fires. It had to be done, for the First Order and for the General. He deserved to be remembered and Judge Lorcas had taken it from him. Not for long though: earlier that morning he had uploaded the portrait of the General on the holonet and hundreds of people had already saved it. 

Mission accomplished, Lieutenant.

_ ‘I will be seeing you soon, sir’. _

The blaster fires again and now there are two dead people in the room.


	5. Haunted places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The General was born in a haunted forest.

People had many misconceptions about him:

He could read their thoughts - he couldn’t, not in the way they thought he could.

The Force made him omnipotent - it absolutely didn’t.

He didn’t have feelings outside the Force - ah!

He wasn’t afraid of anyone and anything - utterly wrong.

Kylo Ren was afraid of himself, his mother and his father. He was afraid of Snoke sometimes. And he was terrified by people like General Hux and, to a lesser extent, Mitaka.

Not because he thought those two could harm him in any way (he could easily crush their skulls with a wave of his hand) but due to the fundamentally wrong shape of their mind. 

Kylo knew very well that he would have greatly benefited from a friendly collaboration with the General but he simply couldn’t bring himself to work with the man. Hux made him shiver because there was no Light in him and that was… wrong. Abnormal. Everyone has, or should have, a beacon of inner Light. Humans, aliens,everything that exists within the Force is a mixture of Light and Dark in varying proportions. Not Hux, who only irradiated the coldness.

When Kylo brought the issue to Snoke’s attention, his master's smirked and told him that:  _ ‘Our General is the mad son of a mad father. I suggest you take a look inside his mind, apprentice. You will be surprised, ah ah! Reckless breeding can have interesting consequences, especially if one of the parents is Brendol Hux. That unhinged madman, ah ah!’ _

Trained Force users are able to navigate minds: it’s a gruelling task that requires skills and experience, but it’s doable. An individual as strong and naturally gifted as Kylo Ren can even ‘map’ a mind and visualize its general shape. Armitage Hux’s mind didn’t have a shape. It was like exploring some fucked up floating jungle whose landscape kept shifting, with monsters lurking under the surface. The damage Brendol had done to him was clearly visible here and there, but it didn’t really change the original landscape. The General was born in a haunted forest.

Mitaka’s mind was similar but smaller and simpler, with weak beams of Light filtering through the foliage. There were beaten paths cutting through the trees and Kylo couldn’t see monsters anywhere. What he saw was Hux, strolling around. The General was haunting Mitaka’s mind and the Lieutenant couldn’t have been happier about it. The boy irradiated a devotion so intense that it even reverbated onto Hux’s muddled waters.

Kylo Ren never actually touched the General, he either kept off or used to Forced: he always had an impression that, if he really touched Hux with his own hands, he would feel something cold and uncanny instead of warm skin.


	6. The most loyal of them all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The young man sits at his father’s feet and the two are chatting pleasantly about the First Order and the best methods to organize an army to conquer the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BITTERSWEET ENDING FOR ALL!

There’s a bare room with a bacta tank at the center and a small window with bars opposite the door. Inside the tank there’s a man eternally dissolving and outside the window there are only frozen piens as far as the eye can see. The man in the tank still has a mop of greying red hair and his son, who’s the one who poisoned him, looks like a younger and thinner version of him. The young man sits at his father’s feet and the two are chatting pleasantly about the First Order and the best methods to organize an army to conquer the galaxy. 

Hux Senior is convinced that the Force has paired them up in the afterlife because they share responsibility for the destruction of the Hosnian System: Armitage for realising it, Brendol for making Armitage what he was. Except that none of them regret it one iota. In fact, Brendol had never been prouder of his son and for the first time in his life he felt actual love for the boy. They get along so well now, their conversation flows so naturally!

Armitage supposes that the Force will just let them rot in the room until they are able to squeeze some repentance out of their souls, which won’t happen for a long time if not ever. 

The sudden and unmistakable sound of a blaster interrupts their peaceful chattering. The look of utter surprise on the face of Brendol Hux doesn’t match the relaxed smile of his son Armitage.

_ ‘Don’t worry, Father. It’s just Lieutenant Mitaka, he’s coming to keep us company’. _

_ ‘Was he one of your men?’ _

_ ‘He was’. _

_ ‘I see. A loyal one?’ _

_ ‘The most loyal of them all’. _

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading a couple of books about the Nurember Trials and here we are.


End file.
